


Deceived By Flight

by asparagusmama



Series: Oxford and the Doctor [5]
Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse & Related Fandoms, Inspector Morse (TV), Lewis (TV)
Genre: But knowledge not needed, Episode Related, Gen, cricketing holiday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: After Tegan's nightmares following the Mara possession start to give the all TARDIS crew sleepless nights, the Doctor decides a little holiday is just what the Doctor ordered. The Doctor's old friend, an eccentric inventor, invites the Doctor to play in a college charity cricket match. Unfortunately there is a suspicious death their first night staying at the college. the Doctor tries to keep his and his companions heads down and continue the little holiday and let the police, and his old acquaintance of his Third Persona, inspector Morse, get on with his business. Will he succeed?Note for new chapter for the Morse universe reader - a young Innocent in in this one :)





	1. The Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have parachuted the Doctor into an episode of Inspector Morse, but no knowledge of the show, or the books, or the episode are needed to follow this story. But if you know the episode, you can play spot the Doctor in the scene. There is a blond, floppy haired extra in the background in some of the cricket scenes and this fic grew out of a joky comment - what if that was the Doctor?

“Doctor?”

The Doctor opened his eyes to see Nyssa standing in his bedroom doorway, looking so much younger in her long white nightgown, a cast off of Victoria’s he suspected, in bare feet, her eyes wide.

He pushed off the bedclothes and sat up. “I was just, um... closing my eyes. What’s the matter Nyssa? Come in.” She went up to his bed and stood at the bottom, looking worried.

“It’s Tegan. I’m so concerned about her. She’s screaming in her sleep again.”

“I’ll come and see her. You go back to bed.” The Doctor followed Nyssa out of his bedroom to see an equally concerned looking Adric in the corridor, dimly lit with a lilac night time glow from the roundels. “Go back to bed. Both of you. Come on,” he clapped his hands. What had he done to end up with such young companions?

“Tegan?” the Doctor knocked on her door.

“What?” she called groggily.

“Are you all right?” he asked through the door.

“I’m fine Doctor. It’s the middle of the night. Go away!”

“Adric and Nyssa were concerned. You were crying out again.”

“I’m fine. Sort of. Let me sleep!”

“I’ll be in the kitchen with a pot of tea if you need a chat.”

Ten minutes later Tegan appeared, hair rumbled by sleep, in purple pyjamas and a brown cardigan. She flopped down on a chair at the table. The Doctor poured her a tea, sugared it, and pushed it across the table. He poured himself a top up and added more boiling water to the pot. He waited.

“I am free of the Mara, aren’t I?”

“Yes. Of course you are. It’s just your subconscious processing the horror of possession. I promise you.”

“How would you know? You don’t even sleep!”

The Doctor looked at Tegan’s drawn face, her hollowed out cheeks and haunted eyes surrounded by bruised looking bags and decided the truth could help her. “I’ve seen things Tegan, that you couldn’t imagine. I have been possessed and controlled, tortured and beaten, and worse. I have already ‘died’ four times. I am some 800 of your years old and I sometimes feel as if I walk in eternity, and eternity weeps. There is a reason I don’t sleep Tegan. I do understand.” He reached across and briefly patted her hand, then looked down. “More tea?”

Tegan shook her head. “I’m worrying the kids, aren’t I?”

“Don’t let them hear you calling them kids,” the Doctor smiled. “They’ll both want to know why they’re being called baby goats.”

Tegan laughed a smile that did not quite reach her eyes, “Yeah, they’re both so clever and so literal. Can’t you take me home?”

“I keep trying. Sometimes I think the TARDIS likes you too much.”

“There you go again Doctor, talking as if the blasted ship was alive,” this time the smile reached her eyes, if only for a moment. “I shouldn’t bale out on the kids... youngsters, should I? Not til they know I’m okay? Poor Nyssa, she had no idea what happened. And I don’t think it was easy for Adric, was it?”

“Adric is resilient, remarkably so, given his age. Nyssa is growing up, haven’t you noticed?”

“I try not to Doctor, she only has eyes for me, had you noticed that?”

“H’m.”

“Don’t give me that mysterious Time Lord above all that garbage stuff! I know about you and the Master!”

“What I think,” the Doctor said brightly, ignoring Tegan’s observation, “is a little holiday is just what we all need. How about a peaceful English village? I own a cottage, you know, charming place. If we go in the summer, I can play cricket, you too if you like, they have a Ladies XI...” and with that he leapt up and dashed to the console room.

“And the kiddos can work out the maths,” Tegan added to herself, smiling sadly.

*

They stepped out of the TARDIS into the utility room of the cottage in Stockbridge into the darkness and coldness of a snowy winter’s late afternoon.

“Where are we?” asked Nyssa,

As Adric said sulkily, “I don’t think much of this place.”

Tegan went to the window and peered through the frosted glass, looking out across the green. “Summer, you said Doctor. It’s sleeting out there, and bitter cold. By the looks of it it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Teatime then,” the Doctor said brightly, flicking the light switch on and off, to no avail.

“How do you know the time, Tegan?” Nyssa asked, as Adric peered over her shoulder to look out of the window. 

“The rain is frozen,” he commented in wonder.

“School kids, going home. They just got off that bus,” Tegan answered Nyssa. She had no answer for Adric, she remembered her first sight of snow, her first winter in England.

“I’ll start up the generator,” the Doctor said, “then we shall have some tea and cake.”

He went out through the kitchen into the hall, noticing the door blocked by post and papers. When he came back the lights were on, his three companions were in the kitchen and Tegan had put on the electric kettle. He smiled and set to work lighting the range.

“Looks like it’s nearly Christmas,” Tegan said. “Can we stay and do Christmas? Go on Doctor, it feels like years since I celebrated Christmas, and I’ve always wanted to do an English one, in the cold. Looks like it might be a white one!”

The Doctor looked up from the range, soot on his pale nose, and whipped his long blond fringe out of his face, “Why not?” he asked, smiling at her. “Christmas it is.”

“What is a Christmas?” Adric demanded.

“Oh Adric,” Tegan laughed, “You are going to love Christmas. It’s a festival that includes far too much eating food!”

“Sound good,” Adric said, grinning.

“I’m just going to light the fires and check the post,” the Doctor said, and dashed out, ignoring Tegan’s snort of disbelief at his having post.

Most of it was advertising and free newspapers and local election flyers, but there was a letter from a friend, Roland. Rolly had been an interesting young man when the Doctor had first met him, an angry science student already aware of the risks to the environment by manmade global warming and not being taken seriously. When they had met again in the seventies he had tried to invent a clean car, emissions free, but he got the look and the speed all wrong, and it flopped economically and he became a bit of a joke, the freak inventor. Humans! So short sighted and obsessed by the trivial of things! The last the Doctor heard was he had been in an accident. The Doctor pulled on his half moon glasses and read.

Rolly managed and coached a charity cricket team of Oxford’s Arnold College Old Boys. They met once a year to play a charity match at the college then toured Europe. One of the players was detained by work until the first European leg of the journey, in Antwerp, and he wondered it the Doctor would consider playing at the college charity match. He knew that he was a Lonsdale Honoury Fellow, but perhaps an exception could be made? He would get the Head Porter from Lonsdale to brief Arnold’s as to what to look out for regarding the TARDIS. The Doctor smiled. The letter was dated 18 months ago, but that wasn’t a problem. But first, a few days holiday here. Recharge the batteries. Exchange a few meaningless gifts and eat plenty of food. Almost like Otherstide. Just what the Doctor ordered.


	2. Arrival

It was a bright, clear, late summer afternoon when the TARDIS materialised into the quad, the sun catching on the yellow stone and cobbled pavement. Two men, one tall with curling grey hair and the other in the bowler of a college porter had just crossed the quad and were entering the West Staircase. As the Doctor came out of his TARDIS he thought he caught a glint of binoculars and the twitch of a curtain from a first floor window in the East wing.

“Come along,” he called through the door. Adric and Nyssa came out.

“Oh, the architecture! It reminds me of Traken!” Nyssa cried, not sure if she felt happy or homesick.

“I knew you would like it Nyssa. Arnold College, built in the late sixteenth century.”

“What century are we in now?” Adric asked.

“Still the twentieth. Now, I have a surprise for both of you. I’ve managed to arrange Readers cards for both of you, as my gifted students.”

“We’re not your students!” Adric stropped.

“Well, in a way we are,” Nyssa said diplomatically.

“For the purposes of the stay, you are my wards and home educated students. You would both be considered minors so need a guardian adult. I thought, while I play cricket, you would have the sum of human knowledge to date on mathematics and chemistry.”

“Humans seem very silly to me.”

“Stupid I think!”

“Well, thank you very much!” Tegan said, emerging not in her uniform, but a short demin skirt and top. She had got used to not wearing it over the five days they spend it Stockbridge. She was carrying a bag, and in it, in her purse, was a credit card the Doctor had given her, suggesting some retail therapy might be in order. When he had said that, Tegan had giggled and said, “Sometimes you are so gay Doctor!” To which he had gone bright pink and both he and she ignored Adric’s and Nyssa’s demand for a translation. Now she glowered at the two of them.

“Call it xeno sociology and history then,” the Doctor said quickly. “Humans are actually quite ingenious and intelligent. Don’t be so quick to judge!”

“The Bodlian,” Tegan said, “do you have no idea how lucky you two are to have Readers cards?”

“Good afternoon. I take it you are the Doctor?”

The Doctor span around to see the Head Porter, a middle aged thick set, tall man with short grey hair and silver framed glasses.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I’m Barker Sir. I was instructed to look out for you. I’ve given you two rooms in the West Staircase. I was told to expect you with one travelling companion, but I see you have three.”

“Um, never mind, I’m sure we can double up. This is Tegan, and my, um, wards, Nyssa and Adric. I sent word to Lonsdale to arrange two Readers cards for the children. Quite quite gifted. Have they arrived?”

“I do not recall seeing them Sir. But they may have. We shall have to see. If you will just follow me to the Lodge to get you all properly checked in, then I’ll take you to the rooms. Dinner at High Table at eight.”

As they crossed the quad, the Doctor again noticed the glint of binoculars.

*

Tegan looked out across the quad from the window seat while Nyssa sat on her bed. “We ought to fetch luggage from the TARDIS.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. We will need sleepwear and toothbrushes if nothing else.”

“And clean underwear!” Tegan reproved. “I’ll need a nice dress too, the Doctor asked me to join him at High Table.”

“And what is that?”

“The college sits down to eat a feast, the senior scholars and those who run the college, along with respected guests, sit on a dais, a higher table, and then two come out either side, at floor level, for the students and staff and other guests.”

“Oh. I see. A similar arrangement happened at many functions on Traken. I think I like this Oxford. Shall we go? The Doctor said to meet him and we could walk around the city and get something to eat for Adric and myself while he goes to the ‘Nets’, whatever that may mean? We can pick up the things we need on the way back.”

Tegan smiled. “Yeah, you’re right, we can’t keep Adric from his meals.”

Nyssa stood up and fluffed out her brown tutu. “Shall we go?”


	3. Day One: Morning

“Tegan? Nyssa?”

“What?” groaned Tegan, pulling the blankets over her head. She’d had far too much sherry, red wine, and port, and was horribly hung over.

“Come in Doctor,” Nyssa called. She was sitting up in bed reading a human chemistry textbook the Doctor had bought her from Blackwells the previous evening after he had joined them from his cricket practice.

The Doctor came in looking slightly flustered, Adric followed looking very excited. “There’s been a murder!” Adric said with relish.

“What?” Nyssa cried, while Tegan struggled to sit, muttering,

“Rabbits!”

“It doesn’t appear to be a murder. I believe the police are treating as a suicide at the moment, but they are treating it as suspicious so the facts may change,” the Doctor explained. “Another member of the Clarets. I have no idea what will happen to the charity match.”

“Will we be blamed?” Nyssa asked, worried.

“Yeah, Doctor, we’ve been blamed often enough before,” Tegan added.

“No no, not this time, I shouldn’t think so,” the Doctor rushed out breathlessly. “I just wanted to warn you that as it took place two floors below we will be asked to make statements and we need to get our facts right. I’m going to find my old UNIT pass in the TARDIS right now and we’ll just need to keep facts simple until UNIT verify who I am, and you too, with the senior officer in charge. In fact I think I’ve met him twice before, when he was a sergeant, back in the 1970s. But he won’t recognise me, which will be the problem.”

“Different regeneration?” Nyssa asked.

“Quite right,” the Doctor beamed. “Two regenerations ago in fact.”

“Facts straight,” Tegan prompted practically. “You said, for the statements?”

“Yes.” The Doctor sat down. “I am a scientific advisor for UNIT, you are my assistant, Tegan. Nyssa and Adric are my wards, my adoptees. I home educate them. We’re here because Roland invited me to play for the Clarets. Once they check with UNIT, they will accept everything we say.”

“Are we going to help solve the murder?” Adric asked.

“Probable suicide Adric. And no; not even if it were a murder. This seems very mundane and human and the Chief Inspector in charge is very bright. I’m just here to play cricket and that’s all I intend to do. Tegan is on holiday, and believe me, Adric, you will enjoy studying the history of human maths once you get into the Bodlian.”

“Who was it Doctor?” Tegan asked. “Who died?”

“Anthony Donn. Did you speak to him at dinner?”

“I tried to. He seemed very down, sad. It probably is as the police say; suicide. Poor man.”

“H’m,” the Doctor nodded. “There are police swarming everywhere and the dining room is closed. They’ve taken over the SCR for an incident room. I thought... if the police let us, that is... we can go out for breakfast. Browns is good. Or it was, last time I was here.”

“Okay fine,” Tegan said, staring meaningfully. “Out Doctor,” she added when he and Adric didn’t move. “So Nyssa and I can get dressed.”

*

As Tegan and Nyssa emerged from their room a woman was rushing up the stairs, a woman with long, curling brown hair and a skirt suit, quite the mode, with padded shoulders and a tight, short, skirt. She appeared distressed. A young blonde WPC and a younger man who screamed CID were following her. Tegan tucked Nyssa behind her until they passed.

“Please give your names to the policeman downstairs,” the CID officer said as he passed.

“Of course Officer,” Tegan replied immediately. She turned to Nyssa, “I think that might be Mrs Donn, the widow, poor thing.”

“Yes. Indeed. Dreadful,” Nyssa replied. “Grief never leaves you, I find.”

Tegan paused, thinking of her Auntie, knowing Nyssa was thinking of her father Tremus, and how Nyssa’s grief would be never ending. Still, they hadn’t encountered the Master for a while now. Thank God! Not since Castrovalva and all that business with the regeneration.

The JCR had been set up as an incident room. They found the Doctor and Adric waiting outside. “I’ve given our names and our room numbers, along with a UNIT contact number. I’ve been told we can go out for breakfast but we must be back for ten for the statements. They’ve happily agreed to let me sit in on the ones with Adric and Nyssa.”

“Good,” Tegan said as Nyssa asked,

“Why must we be accompanied?” 

And Adric whined, “Not fair. I’m not a baby!”

“Well, I’m guessing you equal to being under 16 human years old kiddos,” Tegan said with a slight smirk, “so it’s the law on this part of Earth. For your protection.”

Nyssa positively pouted at being called a kiddo, and Adric stamped his foot, but the Doctor grinned, “Well put Tegan. Now, breakfast. I thought the Queen’s Lane Coffee House, it’s not too far. Let’s introduce the ‘kiddos’ to a full English, shall we?” he managed to put humorous speech quotations around the word that seemed to calm both of the youngsters. Tegan smiled widely,

“Now you’re talking!” she said.

As they walked across the quad a young man rushed past them, looking up at windows. He had dark hair with a side-parted fringe smoothed down with the brightest blue eyes, dressed in a smart but casual sports jacket and trousers. The Doctor watched him go with interest as the man stared, fascinated, at the TARDIS, as he passed.

“Cute?” whispered Tegan in his ear.

“I recognise him. But older. I think.” The Doctor wasn’t really replying to her, but talking to himself. A while later, as they walked down the High, he blurted out, “Inspector Lewis! Yes! But obviously not yet!”

“Time travel must be so confusing at times, eh Doctor?” Tegan teased.

“H’m. What? Yes.”

They entered the cafe, the site of the first coffee shop in the country apparently, according to their posters and art works and signs, and the Doctor ordered a pot of tea for three, and hot chocolate for Adric, and three full English breakfasts, with a vegetarian one for Nyssa.

*

When they returned a man in a wheelchair was coming out of the SCR. An immaculately suited man with white hair was pushing him, but he looked up the stairs to the SOC as he did so.

“Doctor!” called the man from the wheelchair. “So you managed to make it after all! Damned shocking news! I’ve just persuaded Pagan here to let the match go ahead.”

“We’re a man down now,” the Doctor said, walking up to the man and holding out his hand to shake. “Hello Rolly. I was so sorry to hear about the accident. Tegan’s a demon bowler if we can bend the rules.”

“Not exactly Oxford, is it?” Rolly replied, “Even if it is cricket. We owe the fairer six the over-arm bowl, after all. It is good to see you Doctor. And your charming companions.”

“Doctor did you say?” the white haired man interrupted. “I saw you on the college lists, with a check to UNIT. Are you the Doctor, the UNIT scientific advisor? But how on Earth could you be he?”

“It’s complicated. But congratulations, Chief Inspector. I told my companions I met you as a young sergeant, with Doctor Elizabeth Shaw.”

“The charming Liz, how could I forget? But I still don’t understand.”

“It’s all hush hush, eh Doctor,” Rolly interrupted. “Need to know Pagan, need to know.”

“Pagan?” asked the Doctor.

“Need to know, Doctor, need to know,” Morse said sharply, before turning to the stairs. “No doubt I’ll see you later Rolly. Doctor, please do keep out of the investigation’s way once you have given your statements.”

“Naturally,” the Doctor said. “Can I offer you a push, Rolly?”

“My room is through the corridor, they thoughtfully put me on the ground floor. But who are these young people?”

“Oh. Of course. Rolly, this is Tegan Jovanka, from Australia.”

“Ah, the demon bowler, apparently,” Rolly said, offering his hand.

“No quite, maybe a long time ago at school,” Tegan said, taking his hand with a firm handshake.

“Tegan, this is Roland Marshall, I’ve known him on and off since the fifties, in several incarnations.”

“White haired old man when we first met. And me a naive student, barely out of shorts. You get younger all the time Doctor. Damned unfair!”

“Actually, how did you know it was me?”

“Edwardian togs, oddly dressed companions. Who else would you be? Besides, I bumped into Alistair, he said he were quite taken by cricket at the moment.”

“Ah. I haven’t met the Brigadier in this form yet. Better keep that to yourself.”

“Mum’s the word Doctor, Mum’s the word.” He patted his nose. “And who are these charming children?”

“Oh! Rolly, may I present Nyssa of Traken,” Nyssa bobbed a small curtsey, “and Adric of Alzarius.”

“Children not of Earth, eh. Unlike poor little Victoria when we met that time? Hello Nyssa and Adric, I hope you enjoy the cricket and your visit.”

“We’ve seen cricket before,” Adric said. “This time I want to follow the scoring.”

“Good for you young man!”

“I still find it very silly,” Nyssa said.

“I got the two of them Reader cards, as they are both very gifted,” the Doctor said proudly.

“I hope you enjoy yourselves. Perhaps you could take me to my room Doctor. I’ll see you at the Pavilion later, will I? I was sure it was you at the Nets yesterday evening. Shockingly remiss of me; not coming to say hello. Damned difficult, getting my jalopy over the grass.”

“Of course, first we must give our statements. Let me just push you to your room. Wait here you two. Tegan, perhaps you could go now, first?”

“Sure. Bye Rolly. Nice meeting you.” Tegan rolled her shoulders back and braced herself for her interview. Not that she would be much help, she’d noticed nothing.

 

*

 

DC Hillaire sat opposite Tegan, looking bored. She gathered the police were now treating it as murder, so she doubted her information was now irrelevant, but she described her brief discussion regarding the Test over sherry, and how he had seemed distracted and unhappy, as if hiding a great shock and depression in typical upper class British fashion.

“It’s not healthy, you know,” she said, “the way you posh old men bury everything!”

“Did he give any indication of why he was so unhappy?” Hillaire asked, and as he was neither posh nor old, and had to hide a small smirk at her comment.

“None whatsoever, but I got the impression he was heartbroken. Might be wrong though. Just something he said about women not being trustworthy, before he apologized to me, all proper English gentleman. Do you have any idea who did it yet?”

“It’s far too early in the investigation to say, but even so...”

“You won’t tell me, yeah, I get it.”

*

The Doctor sat at a desk opposite the young, dark haired WPC, with Nyssa. Adric sat outside with his new book on Goldbach's Conjecture by Ivor Denniston. Adric was not much help, and the Doctor had to bite his tongue. He wasn’t helpful in hiding where he came from, either, and the WPC was looking quite worried, but whether she believed Adric and was disturbed not just by aliens but by entire other universes, or she believed Adric mentally unstable, he couldn’t tell. Just then Morse swept in to the incident room, making a beeline for their desk.

“WPC...?” he demanded urgently.

“Innocent Sir. Jean Innocent,” she replied, standing

Morse paused, and his voice softened. “Ah yes, I’ve heard good things about you. Graduate entry, St Hilda’s I believe? You read the Greats?”

“Literature Sir. Can I help you Sir?”

The Doctor was surprised, she didn’t look old enough to have both read a degree and done her police training.

“I’m sorry, Innocent, but I’ve just have it from the Super that I need to sit on the interviews with the Doctor and his ‘wards’.” He turned to the Doctor with an awkward smile. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, but apparently there is protocols for such things. You are to type these up in triplicate and give two to Strange, Innocent.”

“Of course Sir.”

Morse sat, so did Innocent and the Doctor, who had stood up, fist balled in his pockets, when he heard he wasn’t quite to be trusted.

*

Tegan found herself agreeing to Hillaire’s invitation to the cinema that evening. She didn’t think she could take another evening of pompous Oxford High Table small talk and rituals, the constant subtle demeaning of her as a person without a degree, as a woman, and as a ‘colonial’. He was quite sweet, really, if not much of a looker. Not like the young officer that had caught the Doctor’s eye.

 

*

 

Morse hurried through Adric and Nyssa’s statements, and the Doctor sent them to go back to the Bodlian until suppertime. Innocent, to her credit, took on board the UNIT connection quite fast. Apparently she had been selected for the interviews precisely due to her involvement in a case the year before, on her probationary year. Women had been abducted and the reason had been alien and horrific. The whole discussion led Morse to grow more and more uncomfortable and grumpy. Interesting, he hadn’t been so over the business with the Cybermat.

 

* 

 

Tegan went back to her room to collect her jacket, bag, and purse. As she did she noticed the Research Fellow with the wife cross the quad from the Porter’s Lodge to quite the wrong staircase, theirs in fact, the West rather than East staircase. He looked quite furtive. 

She looked up to the East wing and saw a flash of binoculars in a second floor window. He was being watched.

Undercover? A suspect?

Tegan dipped into a doorway that led to the second Quad and Rose Garden and Refectory, and left them to it. She would wait a while. Maybe she wouldn’t go shopping after all, but fetch a book from the TARDIS, or have a long soak in the tub – the TARDIS one, naturally, not this medieval college’s retrofitted monstrous contraption. The Doctor had promised to leave the TARDIS unlocked in case they needed anything during their stay.

 

*

 

Morse had seemed ridiculously annoyed at the fact that the Doctor pointed out that he had seen a flash of binoculars from the Fosters room watching the comings and goings of the Clarets and the police. He had no idea, but Morse’s anger prompted him to ask, once Morse had abruptly dismissed WPC Innocent,

“The young dark haired officer I saw this morning? Is his name Robbie Lewis?”

Morse looked taken aback. “Yes,” he replied tersely. “Yes. But please keep that to yourself. I’ve put him in to the cricket team, as my eyes and ears. He’s posing as a porter. How do you know him?”

“Well, I know him, or knew him. But not yet, I’m afraid. I know him in the future, as a much older man.”

“They said you travel in time,” Morse said quietly. “Complicated, I presume, in such circumstance.”

“The universe is a big place, with all of time and space. It happens rarely.”

“Yet you are friends with Rolly Marshall.”

“Indeed. He was quite brilliant. Quite quite brilliant. It’s a shame his electric car didn’t take off. So ahead of his time. It’s such a shame about the accident. It has made him bitter, I think. I take it you were at university together? Here?”

“I was a Lonsdale man. Went down before finishing, sadly. I knew him through Donn.”

“I’m sorry. This must be a difficult investigation for you?”

“It is,” Morse agreed. “I don’t suppose you can tell me how Lewis turns out. He’s quite a prodigy of mine. Not that I would ever admit it to him. He learns so fast.”

“Naturally I cannot reveal his future, or yours, Morse. But I will say this – he will make Inspector and he will make you proud.”

“That is something. Thank you. Now, I need to check the Fosters statements and find a reason to talk to them again. You’ve confirmed Lewis’ suspicions, as it happens. No doubt I’ll see you around. But please, do keep out of the way as much as you can.”

“Of course,” both men stood up to shake hands, “there is nothing inhuman or untoward, just usual human, earthly, murder,” the Doctor commented to reassure he had no intention of meddling.

“And that is evil enough,” Morse said sadly.

“Indeed.” The Doctor nodded and started to walk away. He turned back. “Please, settle my curiosity. Pagan?”

“I wouldn’t give my Christian name, so someone suggested it as a joke, and it stuck rather, for nearly two years.”

“I had a college nickname too. Theta Sigma.”

“I think Doctor suits you more,” Morse said.

“Thank you. So do I. As does Morse you.”

The men grinned weakly at each other before Morse headed for a stack of papers on another desk, in front of the blackboard being used as an incident board, and the Doctor headed for the door. For a moment there, Morse could see that the apparently young blond man was the same person as the beaky nosed, flamboyantly dressed, older man he had met over a decade ago. It was though he was merely wearing his outer form as a shell. Morse quickly buried the thought, the whole UNIT and aliens information he was forced to be privy to due to rank and awful experience was too unsettling to remember, much less contemplate. He picked up the files with the Fosters’ two statements and began to peruse.

He soon found what he was looking for: a discrepancy on phone numbers. An excuse to question them a little more and have a discreet nose about, find any evidence of this spying that Lewis and the Doctor both suspected.

 

*

As soon as the Doctor had seen Adric and Nyssa safely to the Bodlian and said goodbye to Tegan at the TARDIS, who said she was clothes shopping later now and wanted a bath, he headed to the Pavilion. As he walked he wondered briefly why Tegan needed a bath and why she needed new clothes, the TARDIS had an entire wardrobe room full of them.

It looked like he was one of the last to arrive. Men where already choosing lockers and changing. He, of course, merely needed to remove his jacket.

“Doctor. Hello there!” called Rolly, stumbling up to him painfully on sticks. “Everyone, this is the Doctor, a scientist friend of mine, a Lonsdale Honoury Fellow and something very hush hush for the military. He’s joining us until Will can meet us in Antwerp.”

The Doctor smiled awkwardly, and men nodded and called their greetings.

“I hope you have some proper whites,” Rolly hissed as he stumbled into the Doctor’s arms. The Doctor hurried helped him to sit in a chair. “Blasted leg!” Rolly muttered. He looked up at the Doctor. “Well?” he snapped, pain and embarrassment making him fractious. “I need you to blend man, pass as human!” 

“I appear to have left my white trousers in my room, alas,” the Doctor said. “I’ll make sure I bring them for the match,” he promised, smiling winningly.

Rolly grinned back. “Fine,” he said, and then grabbed his stick and stumbled back to his feet, flashing the Doctor a look that warned off any help or pity. The Doctor slipped to the back of the room to find a peg for his coat.

As he chose a peg, and fumbled with his coat, taking his time, not wanting to join in with the human testosterone soaked camaraderie. While he fumbled the Doctor sized up his team of mostly middle aged, middle class, successful, white men. He tried to guess whom would make a good bowler, whom a batter, and whether there were any all rounders. They were talking among themselves and calling out to Rolly about being a man down, and who would they get to replace poor old Donn.

“It so happens, Arnold has a couple of porters this year who are quite handy,” Rolly explained in answer to all the demands. “I’ve had a word with Barker, and he’s quite prepared to cover for one of them. I’ve asked him to come down for a net.”

One male particularly reeking with testosterone and his own importance sneered, “A porter?”

“Well, why not? He qualifies. Any man who hits the ball of the middle of the bat is a gentleman in my book.”

“Quite,” the Doctor muttered sotto voce, mostly to himself, but two men glanced at him and nodded in agreement.

The puffed up, arrogant one, Cranston the Doctor later found out, pushed on with his arrogance, “I’ve never met a Porter who could bat. Blocking. It’s the bone with porters, I’d say.”

There was a ripple of locker room laughter which all the men, some happily, a few reluctantly, joined in with. The Doctor looked down and scowled at his coat in his hands.

Just then there was a light tap at the glass front doors of the pavilion. The Doctor subtly peeked around the rack of clothes pegs. It was young Robbie Lewis, carrying a sports bag and wearing an Arnold College porters’ uniform. Some of the team began to mutter questioningly as Lewis hovered in the doorway.

“Oh, hello Lewis. Come in,” Rolly called softy. The Doctor recognised that voice of old, Lewis had caught Roland’s eye. While, why not? He was quite nice to look at, as humans went. The Doctor had been surprised at how lovely and young, having met him first looking so old and worn down in what was, even to humans, not that many years. Poor Lewis was obviously in for some aging stressful situations between now and then. Not that the Doctor liked to judge on the outward. Lewis had a fine aura, intelligent and kind. Roland’s, however, was marred with bitterness, pain, and anger at the world, such a difference from the righteous anger and hope in the younger man. He was lucky to have a friendship that ran linear; he suspected his one with Lewis might be running backwards, given the assessing look of recognition the young Lewis had given the TARDIS and the stumbled retraction of some knowledge of the TARDIS from the elder Lewis that he could now recall. Something about Lewis had triggered Jamie’s most jealous side, something Jamie usually never showed. But he who is not jealous, is not in love, and the Doctor found Jamie’s possessiveness quite endearing at the time.

Sighing with the memory and the loss, the Doctor finally hung his coat and went to say hello to Lewis. Lead by example was always the best. He was sure others would shake hands once he did.


End file.
